SW10K 2010- official timings and some pictures

'Official' pictures from Marathon-photos.com

In my previous post I wrote about the clutter and chaos at the start of this race. With the growing number of runners the organisers must seriously think of either wave starts or have runners line up at the starting point  in groups based on their past finish times. This practice is followed in many international races with large number of participants. For this to be feasible at the SW10K a longer lead time is required between the time runners move out of the holding area and the start of the race .


However, apart from this issue I must say that from the overall organisation perspective the race was quite satisfactory.There was complete traffic control, there were aid stations every few Kms and also Km markers. I noticed portable toilets in at least one location on the route and there was even a water shower to relieve runners from the heat though I did not run through it. There were water counters   right next to the finish point and refreshment counters had streamlined queues, that is, the finish area was well managed.There was a bit of confusion and some errors when the chip timings and photos were first uploaded - even now a few runners are unsatisfied with their timings.

My official chip timing was 49:05 - pretty much what I had expected. I ranked 222 overall and 6th in my age category(50 to 59).RFL and BHUKMP runners Honda-San and Pani finished 1st and 2nd respectively in this category - kudos to these amazing runners!  BTW - this is probably the first event that I ran without a cap. I have decided that the cap is more a hindrance rather than an advantage for shorter distance events(5K/10K) where one is trying to complete at an average pace faster than 5 minutes per Km. Rahul's official chip timing was 1:18:42. Official results are available here.

Rahul, Akshay, Chandru in the holding area before the race

With Rahul and Akshay after the race

Rahul,Chandru and Akshay after the race